Worcester councilors ponder demise of Henry Lee Willis Center

WORCESTER 
City councilors Tuesday night continued to criticize the process by which the state is divvying up contracts that the Henry Lee Willis Center had.

Several councilors were particularly concerned with how some of those contracts managed to get placed with the South Middlesex Opportunity Council.

The Willis Center will close by Feb. 6 because it has lost all its state funding. Last night, the council pored over a memo from the state that City Manager Michael V. O’Brien described as “hot off the presses.”

The memo describes how $7.6 million of the Willis Center’s contracts will be handled. Advocates Inc., a Framingham-based substance abuse treatment provider, will take over residential substance abuse programs at the Channing House at 21 Catharine St. and the Linda Faye Griffin House at 15 Northampton St.. Services at Tides at 54 Queen St. and Footsteps at 7/9 Woodland St. will be transferred to SMOC, according to the memo.

Also, a $2.5 million contract with the Department of Housing and Community Development to provide shelter for homeless families at programs in Hudson, Framingham and Worcester will be transferred to SMOC. According to the memo, the Henry Lee Willis board has approved SMOC’s proposal to purchase nine of the properties the Willis Center owns.

“DHCD funds congregate shelters in two of those nine properties: 21 Ives St. (Worcester) and 53 Church St. (Hudson),” the memo states.

Once the purchase and sale is finalized, SMOC will have site control, and intends to lease the Ives Street facility to the Central Mass. Housing Alliance, according to the memo. Another site in Worcester that was operated by the Willis Center, on Paine Street, will not have its lease renewed; the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance has found another site in Worcester, at 833 Main St., for its second congregate site, according to the memo.

The memo also includes explanations of what will happen to Willis Center contracts for youth group homes and foster care, and how the state will help displaced Willis Center employees.

District 4 City Councilor Sarai Rivera called the process that has governed the redistribution of the Willis Center contracts “horrible,” and said clients are already feeling the impact — being put on waiting lists for services, and having to deal with severing relationships with counselors that have been built up over time. She said she feels the process has not been a true dialogue with the state.

“It was more of, ‘this is what’s happening,’ ” Ms. Rivera said.

Councilor-at-Large Joseph C. O’Brien said he continues to scratch his head over the unraveling of the Willis Center, and said the city is still left with big questions about what happened. He said there have been few explanations for the state taking such dramatic action.

Ms. Rivera asked why a local agency like Community Healthlink was not chosen over some of the providers that the state went with. Mayor Joseph Petty said the answer he has been given was that the process had to move fast to ensure a smooth transition of services, and there were licensing issues.

The memo states that at least with respect to the substance abuse programs, the rationale for choosing the new contractors was that they were all licensed providers and already contracted with the state to provide substance abuse services. The process to establish a new license and contract with the state is complex and would take more than 60 days to complete, according to the state memo.

Councilor O’Brien said he was concerned about continuity of services to clients of the Willis Center programs, and said he was concerned about the disposition of property to an organization like SMOC.

“The track record there is pretty poor,” Mr. O’Brien said.

The council last night also got a report from City Manager O’Brien on the city’s efforts to prevent opioid abuse and overdose deaths. He harshly criticized a report released by the Massachusetts Health Council Inc. that he said blew the city’s heroin abuse problem out of proportion.